October Monthly Challenge Blog Tour

I had never heard of Kurt Schwitters before I started looking for suitable art for the upcoming challenges. I wanted to do something different, something sculptural, something outside our norm. When I stumbled upon "Revolving" I was struck by the geometry of this mixed media art piece. I loved the rich patina of the colors, sort of a verdigris and brass look. I could picture intersecting lines and earthy beads as well as enameled disks and wire. What you shared with us this month really lived up to my expectations and pushed the limits of my small imagination. I am very impressed!

I love what Ghie of Trinket Tales (above) creates with her polymer clay and two hands. This piece feels like a botanical industrial design. The swirly flowers bring out the geometry of circles and the handmade flowers lend a feminine touch to Schwitters masculine palette. This necklace is just a beautiful interpretation of the colors and patterns from a geometric translated to a more lush and romantic floral. And the asymmetry is really fresh and unexpected.

Lynda Moseley of SCDiva is always innovating with her polymer clay. I love the simplicity of her design. The arcing circles and the lines pair so well with the faux bois texture and dusty palette.

Taking to heart Schwitters use of found objects, Cece Cormier of The Beading Yogini, found a random piece of scrap metal in her stash and used that to etch a earthy design that looks as if it were something that has aged for decades. She translated a really cool tutorial for a bead and jump ring design into a playful element that evokes the movement of the challenge art.

I could totally live in this lovely design by Pam at Klassy Joolz (above).The deep and muted color palette of these beautiful glass beads and focal are so organic. And I love the subtle sheen of the metallic beads that reminds me of the found metal objects that Schwitters used.

Mary Ellen of Bee Tree by m.e.has us literally spinning with her design. The swirling colors in the lentils remind me of pinwheels blowing in the wind. She used a heavy gauge wire to bring to mind the circles from the inspiration art. I love hearing how her process works, and I am always amazed at how quickly inspiration will strike with her!

Tracy Stillman Designs (above) gives us a very simple yet powerful design. The gradated colors of the painting come through on the embossed and patinated brass rectangles. And those glass beads look so much like labradorite, my favorite stone!

Miss Lorelei Eurto rose to the challenge brilliantly this month with a piece that evokes movement like the fine interior of a watch. I love the strong color choices in her necklace. I admire anyone who can master yellow. And the way it is all connected is just so intriguing.

Welcome to Just Beadey! Not only have our awesome challenges coaxed her to come and play with us the past few months, but she started a blog so that she could be a part of our blog tour. So glad you are here! I love the mix of textures and the cool steely blues of your palette (above). The fibers are a nice touch and add to the mixed media flair of this challenge art.

Love the use of metal wire in this piece by Angela Lund-Logan. The earthy colors of the pendant really call to mind the main circle in the painting. And the use of the intertwined wire would make Kurt Schwitters happy!

Miss Renetha of Lamplight Crafts really took the use of found objects to heart. She repurposed the components from a belt into a wonderful pair of earrings including the addition of some great patina and lampwork beads. Great use of assemblage techniques, using what you have and modifying it to make it great!

Miss Theresa of Mackin Art (above) surfaced this month because the pull of this painting was too great! She brought in the lighter tones of the palette and mixed different bead weaving technique for her very cool necklace.! I think that focal bead looks like a float in the water. It looks very nautical and intertwined by these strong ropes. Such pretty colors! Cool and warm at the same time.

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Thanks to all who were inspired by this special art piece this month.

Come back and visit for next month's artwork. I promise that it will be something unexpected again!

Holiday Fair Preparation

I'm at the start of my run of Holiday Fairs - I have 7 between now and Christmas, including two open house events - one in Edinburgh at my mum's house, and one at my home here in Manchester. (If you live in either of these areas, drop me an email - I'd love to welcome you to an open house event!) I have a monthly market which I take part in here in Manchester which is having a special Christmas event as well as it's usual monthly event, and I'm going down to London for a fair at Old Spitalfields Market on the 22nd December. I don't know about you, but that is often when I do my best Christmas shopping - when there's only days to go! I'm really excited to go down to England's capital city, somewhere I love to visit especially around Christmas time, as it's the first time I have exhibited down there. Hopefully the first time of many!

But my holiday fair season is kicked off with The Handmade Show in Perth on the 4th November, about an hour away from my home town of Edinburgh. (If you are in the area, I do recommend coming along, absolutely stunning work will be available! And come and say hi if you are an ABS reader :-)). And it's a big event for me, so it's what I'm gearing up for now. You saw on my last Studio Saturday  that I've revamped my craft fair stand. I debuted it last Sunday, and it went down very well - the best local fair of the year! Every time you have a craft fair, it's always a good idea to think of tweaking your display, there are always small changes you can make to make your stand just that wee bit better. Here's a shot from the last week's market:

I've also set up taking card payments. Unfortunately, we don't have anything like Square over here, which many American friends have told me is a brilliant tool for taking cards. I am hoping we'll have something like that over here in the UK soon! We have a virtual terminal, which means customers can make card payments via an internet-enabled devise. So it could just be a smart phone, but we have it set up so that my phone can act as a WiFi hotspot for a laptop. We took our first card payment last weekend which was very exciting! 

But that's the 'backstage' technicalities. What about the jewellery itself - the fun bit?! Well, I've been going through what sold well at The Handmade Show last year, what's been selling well recently at my craft fairs this year, and what has gone down well online. My work has definitely developed, changed and moved on since last year, but it's still worth looking over exactly what the people of Perth liked last year! If you are returning to a jewellery fair, it's always worth checking through to see what your clientele liked. I'm trying to find a balance between unique, one-off pieces, and designs that I can make in multiples; small batches of easy to repeat designs. I try to use art beads in as many of my designs as possible - so I try and use beads that designers make in batches for these staple designs.

I have a couple of these designs sorted - like these simple ceramic house pendants using beads from Elukka. I use relatively fine chain, and as well as each tiny house being slightly different in due to the way they are made, I try and mix up what I suspend from each one. This means it's a simple design for me to create, but I keep that OOAK aspect to these pendants. 

Another design I can easily repeat are my bluebell earrings - but these don't need to be blue, I am working on pinkbells, peachbells, aquabells and everything in between!

You can see here are my earrings, half done. Again, they are similar and easy to recreate, but again each pair will be different - the Gardanne enamelled flowers are each slightly different and I use different gemstone briolettes for each pair. Both of these have been popular designs for me either online or at craft fairs so I want to make sure I am fully prepared with many of these. Here's a finished pair:

I'm sure there are a few other designs that I will come up with that are similar, in that I can produce many but keep them unique, something that I and my clientele really value. 

What staples do you create for fairs? Do you have any tips to share when you have a big run a fairs coming up? Share with us here on ABS!

Rebecca is a Scottish jewellery designer and singer, currently living in Manchester, England. 

You can read more about beads and singing at her blog, songbeads.blogspot.com and see more of her jewellery at songbead.etsy.com.

Designer of the Week: Lorelei Eurto

Each week the Art Bead Scene features a Designer of the Week. One of our editors picks her favorite from the Monthly Challenge entries.

The Art Bead Scene Designer of the Week is Lorelei Eurto.

Here is what editor Gaea Cannaday had to say about Lorelei's necklace:

It was fun looking through all of this weeks beautiful challenge designs! For me, Lorelei's design wonderfully reflects the abstract shapes and moody colors of this months challenge art piece. Her lovely photos make it easy to enjoy!  

Gaea Cannaday is a mother and ceramic artist living in Ojai, California. You can see her work here... www.gaea.cc or here... Gaea Handmade Blog.

Show Me Sunday

  One of my favorite spooky trends lately is the sugar skull image.  I love the mix of sweetness and creepiness, life and death imagery, with skulls and flowers in candy like colors.  This bead, part of a series of sugar skull lampwork beads by Linda Lawrence of Bella Bead Jewelry, is a great example of a colorful sugar skull bead.  Check out her Etsy shop to see more of her work.

  

Thank you to the commenters who left links so we could find these treasures to show off!

 

Show Me Harvest Beads! 

 

For November, we want to showcase beads, pendants, and components that remind us of the autumn harvest.  Let's see a cornucopia of fall colors, autumnal fruits and veggies and leaves, and a buffet of yummy visual treats to celebrate the change of season. Post your links in the comments here and I will select some of your ideas you leave on this post to highlight in another Show Me Sunday post. 

 

Here is what some of our beady friends have to show off this week: 

 

A Bead A Day
Halloween jewelry? Lisa's featuring a variety of great designs and designers leading up to Halloween. 

 

  About.com Jewelry Making
Tammy talks about making a fused glass color graph.

 

Art Bead Scene
Guest blogger Heidi Post shares a tutorial on building a fun and practical earring shadowbox display 

 

Beading Arts
Cyndi comes up with a quick and easy metal stamping project...with a surprise! 

 

Carmi's Art/Life World